2.0 Cheap and Easy Facebreaker Cycloner

Tons of damage. Facebreaker benefits drastically from flat physical damage and this is hands-down the best helm for that. It also has the added benefit of giving us a nice chunk of +attributes, which we will need for the skill gems that we use. Not to mention its easy on the pocket. ;]


This is a fantastic starting shield until you can find or purchase a GG rare one. Nice high block chance, large chunk of maximum life and loads of armor. And don't worry, it's just like your last date. Cheap and easy ;]


Another awesome shield. I've come to love this shield. You lose a lot of armor (I lose something along the line of 5k armor) but you gain a ton of DPS. I honestly don't need the armor most of the time so it's not a big deal for me. This shield will probably be a little more expensive than the Lioneye's but it's still prety cheap.


More flat physical damage please. Plus we get a nice little bump to our health pool and a resistance. Best in slot and cheap (see the reoccurring theme? I'm stingy, what can I say?)


This last piece is just a personal preference. It makes you even more durable, all res, increased flask recovery (which is actually pretty sweet), and more blood. You can always go with a Carcass Jack but our build runs 5 red gems and 1 green (if we ever get that illusive 6-L) so I really don't recommend it. Besides we want armor. Not Evasion and Energy Shield. You can always go for a nice rare chest as well. I'd recommend Astral Plate for the passive +% to all elemental resists but I leave the choice up to you. I will go for this chest every time. Unfortunately it's a bit more expensive. Easily our most expensive piece, especially early in the league (I'll talk more about this in a little bit) but it drops after a little bit of time. You can probably pick one up for an Exalt, which honestly isn't all that bad.

#1 We level these gems up primarily for when we take big hits. We generate some additional toughness and we need something that can cast Blood Rage since we will have a 100% reserved mana pool. We COULD attach blood magic to Blood Rage but I dun wanna.

#2 These gems don’t need to be linked to each other. You can fit them wherever. Whatever you do though, you can not link these gems to gems that will increase their mana costs (such as support gems) or you wont be able to run all 3 so I place them together.

#3 I wouldn’t recommend leveling these much at all. Temp chains and Tempest Shield gives us a little additional toughness (and block). You can replace Temporal Chains with Enfeeble or Vulnerability (if you’re feeling frisky).

#4 This set-up does a surprising amount of damage. It actually kills large packs of mobs for me when I’m walking around which is nifty to experience. I’m not overly fond of Endurance Charge on Melee Stun for two reasons. One, I don’t really need it. Two, I really want a reason to use Vaal Cyclone so I may replace ECoMS with Vaal Cyclone.

Facebreaker 2.0 Video Guide
4-Linked gameplay footage

.:[ Introduction
Hey ladies and gentlemen, my name is Scott. I'm better known online by my alias Slox and have used various usernames throughout my career as a Path of Exile player. My most notable achievement was the first season I played when I played a Support Scion Spectral Throw build (I didn't realize I was a support at the time lol) and made it to 97. Hitting the top 10 (I think perhaps even the top 5) before abruptly quitting and moving on to other things. I've played the past few seasons, some casually and others at a semi-"hardcore" level. When I'm not playing Path of Exile I am off playing League of Legends, Diablo III or being bored out of my mind trying to find a new game.

.:[ Goal
I wanted to take a new approach to this season. Typically I would just find a skill I liked, look up a build and go with the flow. This usually resulted in me making mistakes, getting bored of my build, or finding a build that was a little too expensive for the time I could put into the game. With life being as busy as it is I couldn't afford to do that this season so I told myself I would not only find, but research and create my own build that would be cheap, fun to play, strong, and wouldn't take a considerable time investment to be effective.

I saw how successful Cyclone has been for a bit and it looked like it could be really fun. I mean, I really wanted to pick up an Atziri's Disfavour and just tear monsters apart. Buuuut at it's steep cost of something like 40+ exalts, that isn't feasible and doesn't align with our goal of cheap. I really didn't want to write a book here so lets get to the point.

Goal 1: Cheap
Goal 2: Strong
Goal 3: Fun
Goal 4: Quick to gear

Well, we could go the two-handed route and pick up a Kaom's Primacy but that leaves us lacking defenses and I really don't want to be 1-shot or die all of the time. I can't see any 1-H Physical cyclone builds being viable so my best option was the glorious gloves properly titled "Facebreaker".

Fortunately the Facebreaker gloves are incredibly cheap, even early in the season because they are a fairly common drop. They can be used with Cyclone and with the right gear can be very strong. And who doesn't love breaking faces and watching their enemies blood cover the floor? And finally, in order to properly use the Facebreaker gloves all you need are the Gloves. You can use rares for the rest until you gather the currency for the rest of the equipment. That brings me to the next segment of our tale:

.:[ Gear
Now the important part, what do we actually NEED to equip.



That's it. But there are definitely some gear I highly recommend using in conjunction with Facebreaker gloves. Fortunately for me, and you, they are incredibly cheap at every stage of the game. Here is the rest of the gear I highly recommend:



.:[ My Gear

Now, this build is the accumulation of looking at a few other builds and just going with it. It's been working so far. I feel strong, durable, everything I was looking for and I'm nowhere near finished with leveling, my gear, or anything for that matter. I've only been playing for a few days (The season started on Monday afternoon, so yeah). But I'm very happy with where I'm at right now and I think you will be too if you try this build. So, without further ado here is my current gear:


As you can see, it's only been a few days into the season and I already have all of my gear. Most of my pieces I was able to pick up for 5-10 chaos or various random currency. I picked up a cheap 600ish% pair of Facebreakers as soon as I could and started using Cyclone. As I leveled I picked up Meginord's and used whatever items I found as I went. I'll go over leveling a little later in the guide. Admittedly, I have a long way to go. The rings need improvement, the amulet does as well but I was fortunate when I found some nice high physical jewelry. I definitely need to upgrade my chest.

But take a moment and look at my gear. It isn't amazing. My chest is a piece of garbage. I'm still only 4-linked. I haven't even tried to get resist capped but I'm still doing Tier 5-6 maps with no issues and I FEEL strong. That's important. I'm not slowly pecking away at my enemy. I'm shredding them. My tooltip DPS is currently 10k. Which is more than enough right now to shred these lower level maps. And I hardly die. I do die, but usually due to me not playing smart.

Let's continue...


.:[ The Build

My build

The goal here is to eventually have max block with Rumi's Concoction. The tree isn't at it's complete state. That is mainly because I'm not sure how much time I will have to play and I haven't experienced the level 80+ maps. So I want to leave myself some room for modification or personalized choices based on my experiences as I level.

.:[ Bandit Rewards
Help Oak for the life
Kill all
Kill all

You DO have the option to Help Oak in Cruel and gain a 16% Physical Damage boost and perhaps it's worth it. I haven't done the math but I like the additional point so that is what I go with.

.:[ Skill Gems and Links

The following is our primary damage link with Cyclone.
4 Link Version:
Cyclone + Blood Magic + Fortify + Life Gain on Hit

5th Link: Melee Physical
6th Link: Added Fire Damage

And here are the rest of our links:
#1 Cast When Damage Taken + Immortal Call + Molten Shell + Blood Rage (Max these gems)
#2 Herald of Ashe + Hatred + Arctic Armour
#3 Cast When Damage Taken + Tempest Shield + Temporal Chains
#4 Riposte + Reckoning + Endurance Charge on Melee Stun + Life Leech

When leveling, find a 4 linked armour and you can use the set-up I have right now. Which is the 4 Link version. It's obviously effective if I am doing T5-6 maps with it.

Let me explain some of my other choices for you gents.
#1 We level these gems up primarly for when we take big hits we generate some additional toughness and we need something that can cast Blood Rage since we will have a 100% reserved mana pool. We COULD attach blood magic to Blood Rage but I dun wanna.

#2 These gems don't need to be linked to each other. You can NOT link any of these gems that increase their mana cost or you wont be able to run all 3 so I place them together with a Portal Gem (for convenience)

#3 I wouldn't recommend leveling these much at all. Temp Chains and Tempest Shield gives us a little additional toughness. You can replace Temporal Chains with Enfeeble or Vulnerability (if you're feeling frisky)

#4 This set-up does a surprising amount of damage. It actually kills large packs of mobs for me when I'm walking around which is nifty to see. I haven't been able to link Endurance Charge on Melee Stun to it, yet, to see how often it procs because Chroms are too hard to come by :(

.:[ Outro
This is my first guide so hopefully you all found it at least a little insightful and gave you something to think about. I've been so excited with my success in this league, specifically with this build, that I feel like I needed to share it with the community. I practically ended my first day ready for maps and with most of the gear I needed. I know it can be a frustrating experience trying to gear for all of these OP builds that seem to clear with ease when they are all so gosh darn expensive.

All of the core items in this build are cheap. You can easily afford one or two pieces by the time you hit mapping level and it just gets easier from there. Early and mid maps are a breeze in-general. Essentially the entire build requires very little investment in both time and in-game currency and I think there are a lot of people out there that can benefit from this. I hope to include some in-game footage if I get the time. Maybe a video explaining some of my choices or to answer any questions you may have. Unfortunately I don't stream because my computer just can't handle it but I'll do what I can to get back to you. I encourage questions. I'll try to answer them. I'm no theorycrafting genius or anything like that. Just an average guy wanting to have a good time and try my best to compete at whatever level I can.

wrong image, will need to do another